The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: The Strange Alliance Between Islam and Socialism

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Radical Islam and the socialist left have formed an unlikely political alliance despite their profound ideological differences. Both movements share a deep hostility toward Western civilization, capitalism, Israel, and liberal democracy, creating a coalition driven by common enemies rather than common beliefs. The history and core principles of Islam, Marxism, socialism, and communism reveal where these ideologies fundamentally conflict and where they increasingly overlap. Their opposing views on religion, government, individual rights, and society are contrasted alongside the shared political goals that have brought them together in modern Western politics. Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit http://www.JoinADF.com/HANSON or text HANSON to 83848 and for a limited time your first gift to ADF will be DOUBLED by a special matching grant—while funds last. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. Car shopping this civic holiday weekend, most car dealerships are closed and all you'll find are crickets. Not Performance Auto Group. They're open this Saturday and Holiday Monday for their annual Civic Holiday Sales event. Celebrate this long weekend with rates from 0%. They might be closed. Performance Auto Group is open to serve you. Join Performance Auto Group this Saturday or Civic Holiday Monday 9 to 5 for the best time to shop this summer. They hate Western civilization. They can't stand the values of Western civilization, free speech, religious opportunity, market capitalism, etc.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. One of the things that is, perplexing and often a topic of conversation is this new American Western European alliance or absorption of Islam and Marxism dash socialism dash communism. In other words, people who identify as radical Muslims often in their alliance include people who are traditional Western Marxist. And it doesn't seem possible for a variety of ways. There's a lot of antitheses. Do we really believe that these upscale people in blue enclaves in the United States who declare themselves socialist and are voting for people like Zoran Mondami or Ilyan Omar or Rashida Talib who are proud and active and often fervent Muslims tolerate gays? Do you really believe if you said, I am,

gay and I'm proud of it, and I want to announce that in Saudi Arabia, you wouldn't be in trouble. Do you really believe that if you went to Iran and said, I want to repeal all the sodomy laws, you wouldn't be in trouble? Or if you went, let's say, to Egypt and you said, I want to have a transsexual support group, you wouldn't be in trouble? Do you really believe that upscale independent women in western cities, maybe unmarried, professional? Doesn't that bother them a little bit when they ally themselves with radical Muslims who tell them that as far as men go, their dream is going to an Islamic heaven and having these sexual use as if they're almost tools of 72 virgins?

Does that go well with a book editor in Manhattan or the head of an NGO in Denver? I don't think so. Another thing that's quite different is Islam believes in Allah, and that's it. All other people who are non-believers are doomed to hell. And the duty is to spread,

worship, loyalty, fealty to the Muslim Allah. But throughout the history, history of socialism and Marxism and communism, all of them agree on one thing that religion is really the opiate of the masses. They feel that class struggle is harmed or negated by people who believe in a God. In the Christian sense, they feel that blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor, that sermon on the mountain doesn't do anything. It basically says there will be social justice

in heaven, but not here. If you're poor, you go to heaven by being morally better than the rich man. Remember, it's harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man,

Jesus says, to go to heaven. So the message is for believers that there is social justice in heaven. The message for a socialist-communist-Marxist is it's right now. There is no heaven. There is no God. We have to get social justice now.

Another thing that's very different is Marxists believe in the state control of the means of production, and socialists believe that there can be private property, but mostly the utilities, the railroads, the steel companies, most all of the muscles of a society are owned also by the state. But they believe in a commission, a committee, a chairman. They don't believe that one exercises power through royalty or succession, although most communist and Marxist states,

which we see in North Korea and we see in Iran, they're very similar in some ways. But in the Arab world, monarchy is pretty much de rigour, as we see in the Gulf states. But Marxism says, no, we don't believe in kings, we overthrow them. That was what the revolutions of 1848 were about. That's what the French Revolution was about. That's basically what the Bolsheviks were trying to get rid of an imperial dynastic czar. So that's another antithesis.

Another thing is the Arab world is based on tribalism, that your first loyalty goes to people who look like you, speak a dialect of Arabic like you, and have a local or regional affinity, a proximity to you. That's always been the challenge of the modern Arab nation or state. How do you include people from 7, 10, 15, 20 different tribes who have fought each other for centuries and only come together when coerced to us, for example, under the Ottoman Empire.

But Marxism is very different. Your first allegiance is not to people who look like you. It's to the global proletariat, the oppressed, the common turn. Socialists believe that they have more in common with people in Europe who are fellow socialists than they do with rich people or people who are devoutly religious in their own country. So tribalism is part of Islam's foundation. Globalism is central to the socialist or the communist or the Marxist. However, all of that said, someone's going to say, well, Victor, they're alike.

They have a coalition. Zoran Mondami is a hardcore Marxist, and he's a hardcore Islamist, and so is Ilyan Omar, and so are almost all the people in Dearborn, Michigan, it seems like. and so are these new socialist candidates that are popping up like flowers everywhere in blue cities and urban areas. So what's the similarities? One, they hate Western civilization. They can't stand the values of Western civilization, free speech, religious opportunity, market capitalism, etc. They both hate that.

Islam has been at war of the West since the 7th century and it's fought Westerners not just in the Crusades but all through the history of the Byzantine Empire all through the history of Europe and North Africa and when bin Laden said the great tragedy was that Islam lost its hold in Europe what he was basically talking about was the Battle of Tours and the stopping of the Islamic movement northward into Europe.

They, of course, in the Quran, and its related apography, there's a lot of hatred of Jews. They hate Israel with a passion, so do Marxist socialist. I'm not sure why they do, given the creation of Israel, was based on a kabbutz system, which is socialistic in nature, and many of the original generation who settled. in Israel, even before World War II, came there as dissidents of Eastern Europe and Russia, and they believed in a socialist future. But that's all ancient history now. As of now, what draws Muslims to the new left-wing, hardcore socialist and communist,

and what draws them to include rather antithetical Muslims into their movement, they hate Israel with a passion, and they hate Jews. There's another similarity. They hate capitalism. They do not believe that a person should have freedom of opportunity to start his own business, to make a profit in the Islamic world. Interest is frowned upon officially, not that the Gulf states are run, the Gulf states are run on hypercapitalism,

but officially they find euphemisms and mechanisms to get around prohibitions in the Koran for hyper-capitalism or laissez-faire capitalism. And of course, capitalism is the main enemy of Zoran Mondami and others who feel it's unfair, it doesn't share the wealth. They believe in the message, not of the Americans, give me liberty or give me death, a revolution to ensure political freedom, but a holistic, totalitarian, 360-degree revolution of, fraternity egalitarianism. In other words, we're not just going to give people freedom to speak. We don't want them to have freedom to speak. We want to make them equal on the back end by the use of government coercion. Both of them that hate democracy then, they don't like the people voting

because in the Arab world or the Muslim world, there will be people who object, to the role of women, especially in the modern age, or the intolerance for sexual minorities, or the intolerant shown Christians. And so they will object, and they wouldn't want to express that objection. That's taboo. And we know from the history of socialism, they say they believe in free speech,

but very quickly socialists try to outlaw it, and when they become communists, they kill for it. That's another difference, and both of them, justify. violence. They believe the violent method is necessary for the desired end. And so you see people who are committing, who are people that commit violence? Who was a person just this week in New York that stabbed somebody? Who was the person in Europe that tried to run over people at a gay party? Who are the people protesting ICE? Who are the people on the campus protesting violently? There are either

radical Islamist or the radical socialist, communist, antifa types, or often they're mixed together in the same demonstration. Finally, remember that Hitler himself said he was a national socialist, socialist. Yes, he made deals with crony capitalism, but even though he said he despised Bolshevish, he said after he was looking back in his final days that he admired Joseph Stalin's communism, and he said that if he had defeated the United States and Russia,

he would have executed American leaders but welcomed Stalin in kind of a genteel captivity. And by the same token, Hitler said that he preferred Islam to Christianity. He had a great deal of admiration for the Grand Mufti. There was an alliance of radical Islam with national socialist. They both hated capitalism, and they hated the same thing as we've just reviewed, and they liked many of the same thing. Hitler was not a hyper-capitalist. He was a socialist, a national socialist.

And in some ways, even though he said he despised Bolsheviks, they had a lot in common. So remember, next time you see this bizarre, weird, surreal alliances of people shouting Allah Akbar or power to the people spread the worth, they're not as different as you think. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Seagno. Female athletes are being forced to compete against biological males, sometimes without their consent or even their knowledge. In Washington, high school's sophomore, Callie Keeler,

was sexually assaulted on the wrestling mat during a tournament. Only afterward did she learn her opponent was a boy who identifies as a girl. With the help of Alliance defending freedom, Callie is bravely suing the state over a policy that not only allows males to compete in girls' high school sports, but doesn't require schools to disclose that information to female athletes or their parents. Don't let schools put gender ideology over the safety of girls in sports. Your support today can help fight for Callie and other athletes like her. And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF will be doubled by a special match-in grant,

well funds last. Text Hanson to 83848 or go to join ADF.com slash Hanson to have your gift doubled. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.